Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

Many people wonder how a “cap and trade” bill that, even according to its supporters, could not have a relevant impact on climate in even 50 or 100 years could pass the House of Representatives.

The words of two different Democratic congressmen give a rare glimpse into the cesspool that is congressional politics, especially on the Democratic side.

First, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), who is Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, repeatedly stated his opposition to the devastating Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax bill.  Then he turned around and voted for it.  His constituents are giving him an earful, and in return he’s giving them a look into the mind of a Congressman.  No wonder a recent Rasmussen Poll shows that 57% of voters would vote to throw out the entire Congress and start over.

Here’s a long quotation from the blog posting linked above.  You can see the intellectual sewage…

“So I laid down a bunch of criteria and we negotiated for three-four weeks, My staff said there is no way in the world the Energy and Commece Comittee was going to give me what I asked for, and what happened was the Tuesday before the vote they came in and gave me everything I asked for. Agriculture is exempt from the cap-and-trade bill completely, the only industry that is. The EPA will not regulate agriculture, or anything to do with us in this cap and trade. I got an extra allowance for the REAs so that they’re going to be offset for any increase in costs. Ethanol was going to be put out of business because of this … land use thing that the EPA was trying to do.

“So when they gave me everything, I was kind of put in a position of, well, now i’m going to lie and not hold up to my word and I’m not going to support this. So I supported the bill. I’ve said and I’ll say it again that if this [the original bill] was going to become law, I would have voted against it. It’s still got a lot of problems.Now, if it goes anyplace in the Senate, it’ll come back to conference committee and because of the work I did, I’ll be on the conference committee and I will try to work to bring some of this stuff out.”

The House passed the bill and it’s now in the Senate, where Peterson says “it’s not going any place, and you probably won’t see this thing in this session of Congress.”

“You got it out of the House,” a shout came from the crowd.

“I did, but I got a lot back for it …” Peterson said before more interuptions from the crowd.

To a certain extent, I actually understand Peterson’s position. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t stink. The nature of our current system is such that it can be, and in this case is, in the interest of a politician to vote for a bill that will do incredible damage to the nation because he was able to get something for his district in the bill.  Actually, I shouldn’t say it’s in his interest. First, a massive economic downturn is bad for every industry, even “defensive” businesses like agriculture.  Second, his district must include people who do things other than agriculture. Third, voters are now waking up and it wouldn’t be surprising to see a real challenge to him in 2010, even though he won 72% of the vote in his last election.

And don’t think Peterson is an isolated case.  Democrat after Democrat was paid off by Henry Waxman to get enough votes to just barely pass his bill.  For example, Marcie Kaptur (D-OH) represents a district in a state with coal and coal-fired power interests…interests which would be greatly damaged by cap-and-trade.  So to get her vote, they gave her a $3.5 billion “sweetener”.  That’s more than $10 for every man, woman, and child in America to buy one vote.

Another example of a Democrat who voted for one of the most dangerous bills in US history while saying he doesn’t support it is Virginia’s Rick Boucher, now in his 14^th term in office.  According to an article in the Kingsport (TN) Times-News (Boucher’s western Virginia district borders eastern Tennessee), “U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher voted for cap-and-trade legislation but said he doesn’t endorse the House-passed version of the bill.”

In a meeting with the newspaper’s editorial board, Boucher said ““I voted for it because I had to do that to be part of the process and to make the changes that have been made.”

Boucher made a similar argument to Peterson, namely that a Supreme Court decision which allowed the EPA to regulate CO₂ as a pollutant is forcing his hand.  However, Americans must recognize that it is FAR easier to challenge an EPA regulation in court – including arguing the science – than it is to challenge an act of Congress.  This is an EPA which is totally out of control, which is taking the word of climate alarmist organizations which have a financial motive to get cap and trade passed rather than doing their own research.  They tried to squelch the criticism of one of their own employees.  And the head of the EPA, just like very other “science” advisor Obama has, is profoundly anti-science and anti-capitalism.  In fact, “(Boucher) said lawmakers have ‘no political will’ to mandate the EPA to do a cost-benefit analysis on climate change legislation.”

Boucher tried to point to 4 things he got changed in the bill, but the real answer as to why he voted for it is this:

Boucher added the easy thing for him to do with the cap-and-trade bill would have been to just vote no. “And I could have done that,” he said. “But that would have been a cowardly thing to do, and it would not have served well the interests of the district I represent with its large coal industry and the fact that so much of the electricity we consume is coal-generated. … I would have been out of the debate.”

There’s what’s really happening, as both Peterson and Boucher said: If they voted against the bill, the Democratic leadership would have then refused to let them participate in the discussion on how to improve the bill.  Waxman and Pelosi got cap-and-trade through the House by a combination of bribes and threats.  And that’s the clean, transparent government they promised we’d get if only voters got rid of Republicans and their “culture of corruption"?

The bad news is that we’re stuck with so many of these Democrats and their large Congressional majority until 2011.  The good news is that we’re only stuck with them until 2011, and for practical purposes we will probably see “moderate” Democrats move substantially away from Obama and Pelosi starting much sooner, particularly if Democrats win both the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races.  In effect, we must stop the Obama-Pelosi-Reid wrecking ball for the rest of this year.  Next year, while far from safe, we’ll at least be far safer.

As I mentioned in my recap of the Steamboat Institute Conference, Grover Norquist mentioned that the way we can do this is by giving the right politicians an “exoskeleton of support".  Although I don’t want to help keep a Democrat in a seat that a Republican is likely to win, voters of both parties should, in the interest of our nation’s economic future, make sure their Representatives and Senators know we will support them if they vote against cap-and-trade and Obamacare, hopefully giving them the necessary strength to oppose their tyrannical leaders.